Seminar Rubric 2009

Careers Day 2009

With the transition to High School only weeks away, Room 3 organised and ran a Year 8 Careers Day. Workers from across the district with exciting jobs travelled to our school on Thursday 19th of November. Each student attended 3 lectures from the employers, 1 for each periodical block (2 periods). The employers gave speeches on how their job works, what their day involves and how to get into their industry.
I visited Reon Graham Director of Sales at EMI Music, Harcourts and Mark Ball the Mayor of Pukekohe.
All speakers were informative, and gave students a clear view of possible career options.

Stepz

Walking into the hall for the first stepz lesson, everyone looked anxious and rather scared. No one was looking forward to dancing with a boy. But once the music started, and Simon taught us the dances, everyone forgot the first thought of fear and let loose. Now every student looks forward to the Friday lessons and cant wait til the Ball.
All these practices are a lead up to the Year 8 Leavers Social, which we will perform the 9 dances we've learnt.
The Year 8 Leavers Social will be on Wednesday 9th of December, and the decided theme is Glitz and Glam.

Typing Test

This is my highest words per minute score.

Competitive Athletics

Since the beginning of Term 4, all classes have been training hard for the Competitive Athletics Day at Growers Stadium. Whether it be at team sport, or Year group athletics training, everyone joined in with the training leading up to the event. On Tuesday 17th November, all competitive athletes walked to the Stadium. The weather was not good, and the rain started coming. But it soon cleared up for the events. The day got under way with the start of track events, 1500m. The field events were running through the whole day in the middle of the track. There were some extraordinary efforts, and well earned placings and records. Grace Gill was the star of the day, beating the Auckland Champion to Champion High Jump record by 10cm.
Good luck to all athletes at this weeks Zone Athletics Day in Papakura.

Grease Major Production

Since the beginning of term 2, students and teachers have been hard at work preparing for the Major Production of Grease. Auditions were done, and rehearsals were almost everyday. Major Production groups, such as Hair and Make-up, Props etc, met every Thursday and made sure our production was a winner for the crowd! Come stage night, everyone was roaring to go and excited about the performance ahead. There were two teams, Team Lightning and Team T-Birds, who both performed one matinee and one night performance each.
I was in the Scenery Group with Mrs Pearson, doing painting and making stars. I worked on the background scenes, plus taking photos.
All the performances were definitely crowd pleasers, and the cast had a ball.
Being even a small part of this amazing experience was a great opportunity and we had heaps of fun. I certainly cant wait for another Production!

Zone Netball

As the girls jumped onto the court you could tell that they were determined to win.
Four netball teams from Pukekohe Intermediate School two year seven and two year eight, traveled to the Manurewa netball courts to play in a whole day tournament. Each team played around 5 - 7, 16 minute games. I was in the year 8 B netball team. We won 5 games and lost 2, overall giving us a placing of 3rd. This was disappointing for all of our team as that meant we did not not make it into Inter-Zone. But we all knew that we went out and gave it our all.

Music Website Design

In the last few weeks of term 3, Room 23 created music websites. This was a part of our Authentic Challenge.

First of all, we had to come up with a creative artist name. I had loads of ideas, but my overall choice was Jorgia Sparks.

We had two website choices, www.webs.com and www.weebly.com. Because weebly didn't have many good layouts and page options, I chose webs.

On our website we had to include the following:
1. Image Gallery
2. Playlist of Songs
3. Lyrics from one of our songs
4. Poster advertising an upcoming C.D Release
5. Biography
6. Blog

This was a very fun assignment and the end was awesome. If you want to check out my website the address is http://www.jorgiasparks.webs.com

Glogster

Cross Country

As the year 8 girls lined up on the start line, I felt a rush of nerves flow through my body. My heart was pumping as I anxiously awaited to hear that torturous gun. When Mr Scott finally shot the gun, there was a huge scramble to get to the start of the course. Everyone was pushing and shoving. When everyone found their feet, we were off. Grace zoomed to the front, leading the pack. Some people made the mistake of starting fast and dropping back due to exhaustion. Coming through into the finish line was such a relief. I was knackered. For me, cross country is quite a challenge. Although I did beat my last years placing, I felt if I had put 100% effort into it, I could have possibly done better. With all my training lading up to the day from Mr Short, I was extremely disappointed.
While the year 8 boys raced, we rested up on the grass bank at Bleidslode Park. After the results and certificates were handed out, we walked back to school.
Most students had full participation and tried their best. The best of luck to the Zone Cross Country Team.

Maui's Dolphin Mural

During 2008, room 23 entered the Resene Mural Competition for 2009. The mural is based on saving New Zealand's only native sea creature, The Maui's Dolphin and saving their homes from set nets.

Here is a letter that Bailee and I wrote:

Dear Forest and Bird

Our class, room 23 at Pukekohe Intermediate School, are writing to you to tell you about our Native Maui's Dolphin.

There are approximately 111 Maui's left in New Zealand and we are really keen to take action and protect them.

Around 250 dolphins die a year (not just Maui's) because of these: plastic bags, our toxic waste going to the sea, nylon fishing nets and boats driving too fast.

We are well underway with painting a mural on a brick wall in our school for the public to learn more about our endangered dolphins and to make them more curious in the drop of population in the last 30-40 years. Now only approximately 10% remain.

Please help us take action. These things need to take place

Doodle 4 Google

During the first few weeks of term 3, our class have been in the process of designing Google doodles, representing New Zealand.

Google was holding a competition for kids in New Zealand to design a Google Doodle. Google doodle's are artistic drawings that are shown on the NZ Google Homepage.

Each student was given a blank Google design sheet and was expected to come up with creative ideas to include on their Google Doodle. This was a success. Many pupils had great ideas and all of the designs look awesome !

As a class we voted for a Google Doodle that stood out the most for us, and could be in the process to be one of the 8 Google doodles chosen from our class to send to Google.

100 finalists will be chosen from all over New Zealand, 25 from each age group and the prize will be a Google Certificate. 20 winners will be chosen out of all the age groups. The prizes: A copy of the Google design for their school, an invitation to the ceremony for the National winners; their Google Doodle displayed on the Google website for the public to vote, and a Doodle 4 Google goody bag. The national age group winner will be chosen by the public's vote, and there will be one design chosen from each age group. Prizes: Interactive white board for their school, and laptop for the winner.

Dennis Hwang, Google's Webmaster, will pick the National overall winner, out of the four chosen age group winners. This winner will recieve $10,000 worth of technology equipment for their school, and their design will be on the Google homepage for 24 hours.

BGFL Multiple Inteligences Test

On the 14th of August 2009 room 23 students completed the Birmingham Grid for Learning Multiple Intelligences test. This test is to see what "Smart" you are. My strongest smarts are Logical Smart and People Smart. These intelligences will change overtime.

ICT Rubric Results

Computer Classroom

This year Room 23 have remained in the same class with the same teacher. We have also received 18 new and improved Apple Mac Computers.It is 1 computer between 2 for most students. These easy to use computers have all the programmes updated to 2009. This year Room 23 have welcomed 5 new students, Jamie, Harrison, Danielle, Steven and Eben. We are all looking foward to the rest of 2009, and new experiences.

Science Roadshow

On Monday 20th July during p5&6, room 23, 28, 33 and a junior class from Mauku/Hunua School went to the Fonterra Science Roadshow held in our School Hall. Three men taught our classes about Planet Earth - matter, energy and life. They explained that even though Venus is the second furthest from the sun, it gets the most heat, at the average temperature of 467 degrees. After the presentation, we had half and hour to experiment on some of the activities they had to offer. Some were : Cow suction, Spinning chair, Estimating age and heaps more. When the 30 minutes was up, we all got called back to watch the second show. It was called Sound Out Waves - The Science of Sound. They said that we can hear at an average sound speed of 20 - 2000 hertz.

Science fair Evaluation

For my School Science Fair in 2009 Shannon (my buddy) and I researched about Tides. We found images on Google of Tide comparisons showing high and low tides. We chose the topic of tides because we don't understand how high and low tides work, and we think that we will learn a lot, and teach the class/school a lot.

Here are some questions and answers:

What causes tides ?
Tides are the rising of the earth's ocean surface, caused by the tidal forces of the moon and sun.

What is a tide ?
A tide is an ongoing cycle, of sea levels changing, in the depth of water and construct oscillating currents known as tidal steams.

Shannon and I found out a lot about tides and how they work.

Exposition

A banana a day keeps the doctor away. Bananas are reasonably priced, and conveniently packaged. They are packed full of vitamins and minerals that are essential for health and well being. Bananas are an amazing fruit.
Bananas contain three natural sugars – sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fibre. Compared to an apple, a banana has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrates and five times the vitamin A and iron. Bananas vitamins and minerals are all beneficial for your body. A banana gives you an instant boost of energy. Research shows that 2 bananas provide enough energy for a ninety-minute workout.
Bananas include substances and ingredients that can prevent illnesses and conditions, ranging from; strokes and depression to warts and mosquito bites. Bananas also contain tryptophan, a type of protein that your body converts into Serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood, and generally make you feel happier.
An individual banana has a protective outer skin and a soft tasty inner, all for the price of around 20c each. Both skin and banana inner can be cooked. Most cultures/countries eat a banana raw and throw away the skin as a snack, although some Asian cultures eat the skin and banana cooked.
A banana a day will keep the doctor away. Bananas are essential for health and well-being and a reasonably priced. Bananas are amazing fruit.

Tapuae Competiton

Week 1, Term 2 Pukekohe Intermediate School held a school wide Tapuae competition. Mrs Hancock, Sports Co-ordinater from Room 45 was the organizer for this competition.

The teams were entered as buddy classes for the competition, and a maximum of 16 team players were able to take the court at once. Lupe Soapi of Room 23, and Abi Chapman of Room 36 were our team captains.

Students from the 2 teams played a number of games against a lot of challenging classes, playing a total of 3 games, making it into the quarter finals! In this game we went up against Room 13 & 45 and successfully came out with victory, which then took us into the Semi-finals.

Our first semi-final game was on Tuesday 16th on June and versed the same 2 classes. We had a really tough game and the weather was really rough, but even though we had to put up with that, Room 23 & 36 still came out with a win.

Wednesday 17th of June we played against Room 28 & 45. It was a very tough competition. But we pulled through with a win.

Our class made it into the finals and played on Wednesday 24th of June.

As the competition was hard we came through with a win and won the competition!!!

Pukekohe Intermediate Makes a Difference for our Mauis!

Maui’s Dolphins, also known as the North Island Hector, are on the brink of extinction, with approximately 111 dolphins remaining. The numbers are continuing to decrease.
Room 23 of Pukekohe Intermediate is making a difference by trying to prevent the rapid decline of these native marine mammals. Maui’s Dolphins are the world’s most endangered dolphin species. Our class of 30 students decided to create a mural. The mural is both to advise and to persuade members of the public to call for a ban on all set net fishing in conservation areas, on the West Coast of the North Island.
Room 23 has participated in several interesting projects leading us to the mural. Our class has commissioned a local Pukekohe artist, Vanessa Graham, to help design and paint the mural.
Room 23 student’s created their own illustrations and Vanessa combined these pieces of art to create the finishing design.
The mural has come together extremely well, and it looks remarkable. It will remain at the school for many years to come and will be an asset to the school and community.

Aims Netball

Through out week 6, Pukekohe Intermediate School have been running Aims trials for Aims in Week 8 of term 3. There were 3 trials and everybody got at least 2 trial games. We trialed in our best netball positions. On the Thursday we had our last trial we have finished the trial at morning tea. About 20 girls got called back to retrial at lunchtime. That was the final trial. Until the team was named, every girl that got called back were very nervous and played as hard as they could. We got told that the list of the Aims team will be on room 31's window by Friday. Everyone ran to the list on Friday morning and the Aims team is: Jazmin (captain) Anna-Lee, Bailee, Tegan, Leota, Shannon, Danelle, Tamara, Kelly, Katelin, Danika and Havannah. These girls will represent Pukekohe Intermediate School at Zone. The rest of the girls that did not make the Aims team are in the Zone B team. This is the B team: me, Breanne, Sam, Danielle M, Keina, Billie, Kaitlyn, Lupe, Jessica, Sophie, Dannielle B.

Chocolate Selling

This year, 2009, Pukekohe Intermediate School is taking part in the Cadbury Chocolate School Fundraiser. This year the money that is raised by all of the year 8's will go towards two marquee tents. They will both be named and contain the school logo. These tents will be taken to zone sports. The money that is raised by the year 7's will go towards their year 8 camp next year.

There is going to prizes for the top chocolate sellers. One prize for year 7 and one for year 8. There is also two prizes for the two top classes and a spot prize for anyone that has sold at least one box of chocolate.

Many people have taken part in this school wide event and look forward to sell them again next year.

Ngahinapouri School Netball Tournament

On Sunday 24th of May 2009, 10 girls from Pukekohe Intermediate School, including Jorgia Watson, Shannon van den Berg, Havannah Pearson, Danelle Cox, Jazmin Fulton, Kelly Drew, Tegan Hunter, Danielle McNabb, Billie Paterson and Bailee Graham, travelled to Minogue Park Netball Courts in Hamilton for the Ngahinapouri School Netball Tournament. We competed in 5 games throughout the whole day. It was sunny for the first 2 games but then it started to rain and it was windy and freezing cold. Our team, Pukekohe Platinum did extremely well placing second in the tournament by only one goal! We had injuries from numb fingers to grazed knees, but we all had an awesome day and it was great fun!

Here are the results:
Pukekohe Int vs St Andrews 21-10 Win
Pukekohe Int vs Peach Grove 13-12 Loss
Pukekohe Int vs TAI Soldiers 13-13 Draw
Pukekohe Int vs Maeroa 18-3 Win
Pukekohe Int vs Berkeley 13-9 Win

Certificates

Here are some of my certificates I have been awarded from Mathletics and Spellodrome.

Buddy Class Shared Lunch

BubbleShare: Share photos - Find great Clip Art Images.


In term 1 we had a shared lunch with our buddy class room 36. Here are some pictures.

i-Web

For my i-Web Mark and I researched Tobacco Smoking.We found out alot about the bad effects and facts about Smoking.

Maths Week Poster

From 11th-15th our school is holding a Maths Week. It will be filled with questions and fun activities. One of the activities was to design a Maths Poster. Here is mine.

D.A.R.E

Room 23 have been lucky enough to be selected to learn about D.A.R.E with an awesome Police Woman called Constable Sheree.

D.A.R.E stands for:
Decision Making
Assertiveness
Responsibility and
Esteem.

The old fashioned way of D.A.R.E is:
Drugs
Abuse
Resistance and
Education.

During these sessions we learnt about Marijuana, Cocaine, Alcohol, Peer Pressure, the harmful effects of Drugs and much more.

In the class we had a D.A.R.E box. This box was used to put anonymous questions about life. When Sheree was in she would pick a few questions out of the box, read them to the class and answer them.

At the end of term 1 we received certificates and T-shirts of appreciation and participation.

We had lots of fun in these classes and appreciate what we have learnt.

Girls Cricket

In Term 1, sixteen year 7 & 8 girls were selected to play girls cricket for the school. It started with two trials during lunchtime on Monday and Tuesday in week 6. Mrs Garrett assessed each individual player on their skill and ability. From there, she chose the team who in week 7 versed the School Milo Boys Cricket Team. Then on Tuesday 7th April, the girls cricket team travelled to Weymouth Intermediate to compete against 7 other schools in a Zone competition. Here are the scores and the other schools we played against:
Game 1: BYE
Game 2: 30/17 vs. North Counties - WIN
Game 3: 23/21 vs. Central - LOSS
Game 4:35/20 vs Rosehill - LOSS
Game 5:18/14 vs. Mansell - WIN
Game 6:19/? vs. Weymouth - LOSS
Game 7:37/22 vs. Manurewa - WIN
Our team did well, winning 3 games out of 6.

Self Smart Reflections

The New Girl

Nobody liked Jude. She was odd. A poor 12 year old girl, alone every morning tea and lunchtime. She was very pretty, long blonde hair, sparkly green eyes, skinny, although she had no friends. She would do anything. She was pretty much invisible.

In the weekend, my best friend and I were leaving the movies, when we saw Jude pull out onto the road on her bike. She was in the bike lane as a 4-wheel drive passed her, knocking her over on the way. The driver didn’t know what they’d done, so we ran to her and helped. She was crying but it wasn’t that severe, we didn’t think.
As I called for help, Abby realised her arm was in a funny position. “EW… LOOK AT HER ARM!” She screeched. Jude was clutching her arm as help arrived. She was screaming as the paramedics carefully lifted her into the Ambulance.

As they raced her to the Hospital one of the paramedics asked her to explain what and how it had happened. But she was speechless, in such fright, but still clutching her arm. When her cast was put on, her mother took Abby, Jude and I home.

At school on Monday, we let Jude hang out with us. Hannah, the M.P.G.I.S (most popular girl in school) took offence at the way Jude was looking at her because Hannah knew Jude never had anyone to hang out with. Wherever Jude went, Hannah would call her things and pushed & shoved her.


During lunchtime Hannah hit Jude, but Jude didn’t respond, and we all walked off. But Hannah followed. We kept turning around and giving her weird looks, but she didn’t care. That’s when Hannah started running up to us. She jumped on Jude’s back screaming and yelling, leant back, fell on the grass, and strangled her. Suddenly people were swarming in pinching, punching and abusing her. Tears poured down her face as we helped her up and sprinted to the staffroom.

Hannah’s bullying was continued for the rest of the term and after the holidays she didn’t come back to school.

I guess she moved.

Literacy Enrichment

Four lucky students from Rooms 23, 4, 11, 28 and 12 have been picked to be in a Literacy Enrichment class. In our Room 23 group we have Jorgia, Kahurangi, Bailee and Sophie.
Mrs Griffin takes this class every day 2. We arrive in the Art Room at 9:00 a.m and work till 10.30 a.m.
In this Enrichment class our goal is to write, illustrate and design our own big book. Once we have published our story we will go to a Primary School and read it to the Junior department. As a group we have decided to name our story Rainbow Zebra.
Our story is about a Rainbow Zebra that is very beautiful and he has colourful stripes. In the end he is kind to everyone and gives each of the other Zebra's in the park a stripe.

First Day of 2009

In 2009 our old Room 23 class has almost stayed the same with our same teacher Mrs Pearson. Joel has left us and we have 3 new students. Steven, Jamie and Harrison. We have 18 new, straight out of the box Apple brand computers with 15 inch flat screens. 7 lucky individuals get to use their own computer for the whole of term 1. We are now big years 8's. My goals for 2009 are to try and get the Food Technology award in the Full School Prize Giving or one of the Principals Prizes. I will try to get the Food Technology Award by cooking nice food and paying well attention to Mrs Garrett.